


Seolite Fire

by chesslyfe5eva



Category: Disco Elysium
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Loneliness, Suicide Attempt, kim's okay i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21818572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chesslyfe5eva/pseuds/chesslyfe5eva
Summary: New Year's Eve, '32. Patrol Officer Kitsuragi is spending a very productive and very lonely night at the precinct when he is dispatched to deal with a trespasser.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 74





	Seolite Fire

Kim Kitsuragi spent most of New Years' Eve at RCM typing away at his desk, processing a gang of delinquents who had been caught sniffing speed in a shopping mall bathroom. As far as New Year parties went, this one deserved an A- in terms of attendance and a D in choice of locale. They made quite a ruckus as Kim tried to explain their situation, pelting at him that mixture of unimaginative insults ("Suck a dick, binoclard,") and insidiously hurtful insights ("Don't you have anything better to do?") that only 12 to 14-year-olds can come up with.

Kim did have nothing better to do. That did not mean there was anything wrong with his life. It was good that RCM had officers who could cover holiday shifts while others went home to celebrate with their loving families and friends who didn't call them a traitor. It was good that Kim had extra time to get work done, without the distraction of coworkers who thought that pride parades were hostile gatherings that should be broken up with tear gases. It was good that Kim was enjoying a pleasantly solitary evening, alone with his report of 19 speedfreak middle-schoolers, with no boyfriends who looked down on him, no children whom he will probably have to arrest in ten years, no time to think too hard about what he did wrong all these years.

This perfect, productive and not at all lonely night was interrupted by a new juvenile crime: a trespassing incident at the seawall.

***

The Industrial Harbor was home to some of the world's largest seawalls, built by paranoid corporations willing to spend 10 billion reals against couple-in-a-decade tsunamis. The locals had complained about losing their view of the sea, so the corporations compromised by carving out a small observation room within the seawall every dozen kilometers. Romantics, thrillseekers and amateur urban climbers, unhappy with watching the ocean from behind a glass window, often cut the offending window and hoisted themselves up to the top of the seawall in the middle of the night. 

The trespasser didn't have fancy urban exploring tools, so they made do with a crowbar. A worryingly large amount of blood had dried on the jagged edges of the window. Kim stopped in his tracks. flashlight hovering on the blood. Unprepared, taking a long time despite obvious injuries to their body...the trespasser was likely there to jump.

Kim turned off the flashlight and took a deep breath. And another. And another. Only a couple precincts in Stella Maris had dedicated jumper squads. Everyone else had to use their far too short de-escalation training and intuition.

He called an ambulance and the fire brigade for the lack of better options. Then he was alone.

He broke off the larger, more dangerous edges as quickly and quietly as possible before leaning out. The jumper was still within sight, sitting on top of the seawall, one shoe missing, wearing a dark green, baggy hoodie obscuring their face. Kim looked at the jumper and the ocean swirling fifteen meters below. Younger people can survive heights like that; most who jump will die with broken legs and salt in their lungs as the tides slam them repeatedly against the seawall. Kim didn't want to die that way. He didn't want _anyone_ to die that way.

_Jumper is such an impersonal term. They're a human being, Kitsuragi._

_Shut up. Stay detached, officer._

Kim pinched the bridge of his nose, counted to three and took off his patrol coat. It would shield him against the broken glass, but it would also tell the jumper that he was a police officer. As far as most people knew, the police only showed on scenes of crime. Trespassing and window breaking aside, there was nothing truly criminal happening at the moment. Once ready, he leaned as far as he could out of the broken window, enough for the jumper to see his face and hands. The hole was reasonably large, even with the jagged parts. He only scratched the sleeve of his shirt. 

"Hey, stay away from me!"

Just a kid, by the sound of it. No older than sixteen.

"Hey," said Kim. _Act like them. Act like it's normal. Don't scare them._ "How's the view there?"

"Black."

Neither the kid nor Kim was impressed with Kim's work so far.

He kept going. "My name is Kim. What's yours?"

The kid paused and looked around. "Rute," they said.

Kim didn't fail to notice the giant Rutebok stamped on a construction crane in the distance, illuminated by spillover light from the east. "Rute. That's great name. What brought you here today?" He meant "Why?" but of all the interrogatives in the language, why somehow sounded the harshest.

"I don't want to be alive."

"You must be in a lot of pain."

"No." Their answer was curt. "I'm fine. I'm not here because of a breakup or anything stupid. I just sat down and thought and decided it was the best thing to do, you know. Every day is so damn miserable. I don't have friends. I don't have a family. And no one born in this place leaves. So I'll be here forever. Miserable, stuck and alone with a job that'll probably kill me. I thought it was shorter this way. No difference between here and fifty years except for the amount of bullshit I have to put up with."

Kim paused. They were right in a sense. No one born in Revachol West left Revachol West. And if you did, you were a traitor. You would never talk to your childhood friends as equals because your new coat will always remind them of their murdered neighbors. You would never learn how to make the dishes you loved as a child because there is no one to teach you. And you would never feel at home in your new place because a part of you will always, always miss the shithole you grew up in.

_This isn't about you, Kitsuragi!_

He couldn't say it'd be better. He didn't know.

"I understand," he said instead. "Not all of what you're going through, of course, but everything you said. Life _is_ miserable out here, isn't it?" He paused again. "But you waded through this for...how long?"

"Fifteen." Self-consciousness crept into their voice.

Kim pretended not to notice. "..fifteen years. You went through this for fifteen years. How did you do that?"

"Well, I don't remember one third of it. That helped."

"Mhm."

"I do like to draw. It makes sense when I draw..." Rute stopped abruptly. "Hey, I know what you're doing. You're going to tell me to draw. It's not about that! It's about...it's about people. I can't just draw alone for the rest of my life. I need people who love me. But there's no one who loves me and no one will. I'll never have a family. People like me don't get...that. Love. Family."

Kim was not sure how longer he can keep the pose. His arms shook more and more violently each minute, and he couldn't tell if it was the strain or his own nervousness. He wanted desperately to tell the kid that he thought the same--that for chunks of his youth, he thought he would never even find someone like him, much less one that loved him--but now he was alright, now he had a boyfriend, a family and human affection. He wanted desperately to lie. How do you destroy conjecture without evidence?

"Everyone deserves to be loved," he said. Stupidly. Plaintively.

Kim felt something wet drip on his brow.

_Too warm for snow. Blood._ _The kid's going to die because of you._

"Why are you here?" said the kid. "Why are you doing this? Don't say _you_ care for me because as soon as I step away and you think you saved me, you'll just go away with your life and forget about me. Does this make you feel bigger? Do you _like_ looking at me and thinking about how much better you are?"

 _No, no, no._ His right arm slipped and slid across one of the jagged edges. He angled the long cut out of the kid's sight and went on as if nothing happened.

"I'm here because I had nowhere else to go tonight," said Kim. "I don't have much in terms of friends and family either. But I think I'd resent it terribly if someone came up and threw me out of this window. I don't know why." He could feel his heart hammering at the base of his thumb and behind his skull. "It might be because I do remember having people who loved me. And it makes me believe that it is at least theoretically possible for someone to love me in the future. I'd be very upset if someone robbed that chance from me."

The kid hugged their knees and shivered, but did not respond.

"You've been there for hours, haven't you? You were thinking of something. Something that held you back."

"I'm just scared of dying. I don't want to die." They rubbed their eyes. "I just want things to be better."

"If tomorrow will be better than today, would you want to step away?"

They nodded.

"A couple of firemen might be stopping by to help you down. Once you're down, would you like to talk about how to do that?"

Another nod.

In the end, it turned out to be an empty promise, something Kim had been trying to avoid all night. It took a further hour for the firemen to arrive. As soon as the firemen brought the kid down, the medics rushed to them, thanked Kim curtly and bundled them away to the ambulance wagon. If the kid felt betrayed, they were too weak from lost blood to show it.

"You saved a life, officer," said one of the firemen.

"I suppose," said Kim flatly. 

It felt pretentious to even say he saved a life. Who was he to think that he was the only thing between the kid and certain death? He hadn't solved any problems. He hadn't made anything better. Perhaps he only delayed death by a few hours or days. Inside of him wasn't even regret or guilt, only a strange, inexplicable hollowness. He had saved a life for the first time in his life and he felt horrible.

"Will there be anyone here the next time they try it?" said Kim, tugging at the bandage on his arm.

"Maybe they won't try it again. For most people, it's just an impulse."

Kim nodded, unsure what to believe.

***

Kim took the long route home that night, stopping at a Frittte for a pack of Astra. His hands hadn't stopped shaking. He only needed one to take the edge off. It helped him focus on what was important. Just one. Just one.

As he waited for his change, he noticed something familiar on the shelf behind the clerk, tucked under a cavalcade of miniature pine trees and fireplace ornaments: Seolite fire. Dumb little fire hazards for children that sparkled when you set it on fire. It was very important to light it right as the clock ticked midnight of the New Year. The Matron obviously didn't allow children to start a fire in the house, so he and his friends used to smuggle them in long before the occasion and sneak out somewhere new every New Year's Eve to light them.

"Can I have one of the Seolite fires?" he asked without thinking.

"Do you mean the sparklers?"

"Yes."

"That'll be 50 centim."

Kim handed over the coins, wished the clerk a happy new year and left in a hurry.

Outside, he took out his matchbook and waited. He let the Astra sit in his pocket--they were not important and they wouldn't go anywhere. At midnight, Revachol would herald in the New Year with a firework display across the Esperance. He checked his watch and lit his match during the final minute. His hands held steady. He took out a single stick of Seolite fire and lit it just as the fireworks shot through the night sky. Against all odds, it made him smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't know what Elysium’s equivalent of Christmas was, so I just subbed in the old Soviet equivalent: New Year's Eve. Time for cheer, friends and family...or misery if you don't have those. To everyone who feels down during the supposed happiest time of the year: you're not alone.
> 
> A bunch of stuff like Kim being kind of okay with kids in the beginning and being very secretly attached to his heritage are inspired by KapitonovaOlya's awesome Kim headcanons on twitter. I've also accepted aiineslin's Kim childhood fic as basically canon.
> 
> Seolite fire is based on what I knew as Bengali fire my whole life. Apparently, its real English name is sparkler. Lame.


End file.
